


just a kiss goodnight, maybe

by idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, also: complete overuse of commas; i'm sorry, peggy takes no shit from steve, the focus is definitely on steve/peggy and not on stucky in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 21:23:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18668635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo/pseuds/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo
Summary: AVENGERS: ENDGAME SPOILERSSteve Rogers goes back in time, saves a friend, shares a dance with his best girl and realises that, maybe, the past isn't the place where he's needed most.





	just a kiss goodnight, maybe

**Author's Note:**

> so umm I saw endgame, had some opinions, wrote this as a fix-it in about two hours (not beta-ed, all errors are mine, feedback always much appreciated!!)  
> some notes: I love Peggy Carter with all my heart and I absolutely loved her conclusion in Agent Carter and I kinda hated how Endgame ignores her dope-ass relationship with Daniel Sousa (I fucking love the two of them). Also I don't think that Steve would really leave Bucky and the rest of his crew alone in the future, I can get that he'd want to leave his shield with Sam but like... not like this. ALSO: I really didn't want Natasha to die so like..... fix-it!!  
> and btw: I always kinda headcanoned Steve/Bucky/Peggy as a poly thruple (at least w Steve dating both Peggy and Bucky, idk if the two of them were into each other ..?), so like, that's how that's written in this. 
> 
> title by 'put your head on my shoulders', which, you know, perfect song to slow-dance to even though it wasn't out until the late fifties.

He puts the stones back one by one.

The Tesseract is first. It’s a quick in-and-out, hiding between the shelves to avoid the man that is Howard Stark – that he doesn’t really recognize anymore, with none of the kindness and the excited air around him left that he used to have back in the day.

On the way out he gets a handful of pym particles, enough to make all the necessary trips with one extra just in case something goes wrong. (He hesitates as he walks past Peggy’s office but passes the door and moves onwards.)

The Time Stone and the Spectre are easy, as is the Reality Stone in Asgard. When he gets to Morag, Peter Quill is still laying on the floor and Steve places the Power Stone back where it belongs.

Then he makes the jump to Vormir, and for the first time on his journey, he falters. The Red Skull awaits him and they both stare at each other for a moment (a minute, an hour, an eternity). Then Steve holds out the last stone and says, with his voice shaking only the slightest,

“A soul for a soul.”

“Ah,” the Red Skull says, “I see.”

And Steve’s hand is trembling and his face feels like it’s made of stone and his jaw is clenched up because the chance that this will work is tiny, but he has to try.

He walks to the edge of the mountain, looks down, and it’s a déjà vu of sorts because he remembers looking down as Bucky fell, and now it’s another best friend of his whose life is at stake.

He throws the stone.

The cliff is high, and any other stone wouldn’t be visible anymore after a few seconds, but the stone falls and falls and Steve still sees it and then it hits the floor and everything turns bright, so bright –

He wakes up in a shallow pond at the bottom of the ridge.

His suit is damp but not wet, and he sits up to see if anything changed, if it worked, and then he hears someone coughing, sputtering, and when he turns around, he sees her red hair and her pale skin and his body sags together just a bit.

She’s weak, still.

He helps her to her feet and tells her that it’s okay, that they won, that everything will be okay now. He tells her that it was Tony who saved them, who made sure that they would all see tomorrow, and he doesn’t have to say how it ended for her to realise it, for her face to crumple up.

And she falls into his arms and sobs in both relief and anguish and it breaks his heart and he holds her long enough for both their tears to stop, for their breath to fall into a rhythm and for her to straighten up, run a shaking hand through her hair, smile at him.

“Well then, let’s go home, shall we?”

She’s tapping her coordinates into her wristband that still holds her pym particle and Steve follows to do the same but hesitates for a moment. There’s still a spare pym particle in his belt and he doesn’t want to let it go to waste, doesn’t want to change another thing in the past, doesn’t want to –

Natasha puts her hand on top of his and it’s her smile that he knows, similar to how Bucky sometimes looks at him. It says, ‘ _I know I can’t stop you’_ and ‘ _don’t do anything stupid’_ and ‘ _don’t be a dumbass’_ and Steve enters coordinates different from the ones she just put into her wristband.

“Be selfish for once, Steve Rogers,” Natasha tells him as they turn to face each other and hover their fingers above the right button.

He grins at her. “Get home save.”

Buttons are pressed and the feeling of his insides bouncing around that he’s gotten used to by now comes and goes, and then he’s standing in 1945 in New York in front of a room that he knows is inhabited by one Agent Carter because he snuck into an office and stole a file.

It’s Saturday and half past seven, and he knocks.

The door opens to reveal Peggy, dolled up with curled hair and perfectly red lips and a gorgeous red dress on. ( _A real dish_ , Bucky would probably say at the sight.)

She stares, and he tries to say something but can’t get any words out, and then she slaps him across the face, hard.

“What the – _Peggy_!” Indignation.

“Who are you and why do you look like Steve Rogers?”

“Pegs, it’s really me. Look, I know this looks weird but let me explain – “

She drags him into her room, closes the door, runs her hands over his shoulders, his arms, squints. “When we flew out to save the one-oh-seven, how did you get out of the plane?”

Steve rubs his head. “I jumped?”

“With a parachute?”

And Steve has the decency to look sheepish because he hardly ever uses parachutes, not in Peggy’s time and not seventy years in the future. “Without one,” he replies.

Peggy stares. “How are you real? How are you _here_?”

“I’m,” Steve laughs a bit because this will sound insane, probably, “I’m from the future? They find me, seventy years from now, pull me out of the ice.”

A raised eyebrow. “And why are you here, now?”

“It’s, it’s a long story, but I had some business in the past and, listen, Peggy, this was probably my last chance to see you again, ever, so I took it.”

Peggy stares at him for a moment, then her mouth is on his, her hands in his hair, his arms around her waist, and they kiss, clinging together desperately.

Peggy pulls away with her eyes still closed, presses their foreheads together, pulls Steve backwards a bit so her hand can find the radio without letting go of Steve.

They’re in luck because the station they land on is playing a slow song, brass instruments filling the quiet of the room with music. Peggy pulls Steve even closer and sways them from left to right, ever so slightly, and Steve leads them into an easy swing step.

“Where’d you learn to dance?” Peggy murmurs after a minute or two (an hour, an eternity)

“Bucky needed someone to practice with. Taught me some steps.”

Peggy smiles, quietly to herself, presses their lips together again, closes her eyes, rests her head on his chest.

They twirl around the room for a bit as one song passes and another one begins.

Then, after a while, Peggy speaks up again.

“You won’t stay, will you?”

“I’m not sure.” Steve murmurs against her hair.

Peggy pulls away enough to look at him and it’s a stern look, the one she reserved for when him and the rest of the Howlies took unnecessary risks on their missions or used too many explosives again or pulled a stupid joke on her, a look that says ‘ _stop your bullshit’_ and ‘ _don’t even try to get out of this’_.

“Don’t even try it. There’s bound to be people in the future relaying on you. We’re gonna be fine here.”

(She says ‘ _here’_ as if it’s a place he can visit any time and not the past, the fucking past that’ll be lost to him forever once he returns to his present day.)

“It’s not –” He hesitates. He thinks of what he’ll miss out on, thinks of the life he could have with Peggy, all the good he could do with his knowledge. But then his thoughts move on to Bucky, to Sam and Natasha and Tony’s adorable little daughter and his jaw clenches.

Peggy just looks at him with a soft smile and with love, with so much love that it looks like she might burst over any minute now. She looks how Steve feels.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to stay here, Steve. But I’m glad that you visited.”

He bites his lip. “You’ll have such a great life, Pegs. You’ll do amazing.”

Peggy grins up at him, and he _knows_ that grin. “I’m sure I will. I’m _me_ , after all.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“That’s the spirit,” Peggy repeats. “Now dance with me some more, darling, and tell me about the future.”

He tells her stupid things, murmurs into her hair how much the food has improved, talks with her about how women’s rights changed over the years, whispers into her ear that same-sex marriage is legal now in the US and that even the number of polyamorous relationships is growing, blushes as he mutters into her neck that there’s a whole floor on a museum dedicated to him. He tells her a bit about the Avengers, about finding a friend in Natasha and in Sam and about how Tony truly was the best of them all, and that, once Howard’s son is born, Peggy should keep an eye on the boy.

(He tells her about Bucky, as well, about how he survived and how the two of them have found each other again against all odds. Peggy promises that she’ll go look for Bucky as soon as possible to find him sooner than Steve did in his own reality. She tells him she’s happy for the two of them.)

They dance around her room and Steve is happy, so happy he wants to cry. Which he does at one point, but so does Peggy, and then they both laugh as they lie on her bed and share half a bottle of wine.

The evening is over sooner than either of them want it to be, but shortly after one in the morning Steve is standing in the middle of the room, his suit on and his hair straightened and the last remains of Peggy’s lipstick wiped of his face, the coordinates to the future set on his wristband.

Peggy pulls him close one more time, kisses him frantically, desperately, tousles his hair again. There are tears in both of their eyes when they pull away.

She holds onto Steve’s shoulders, looks at his face, smiles just a bit. “Give my love to James. Tell him I’m glad at least one of us got you in the end.”

“I will.” Steve closes his eyes to stop the tears from falling but it doesn’t work, one by one the drops roll down his face. “I guess this is goodbye,” he finally says.

Peggy wipes his cheeks with her thumb even though there are tears running down her face as well. “Goodbye, Steve Rogers. I’m glad we got our dance.”

Steve kisses her again, just a short peck on the lips. “Me too. Take care of yourself, Pegs.”

She takes his hand off her waist and puts it over the button on his wristband, her hand above his. “Together?”

Steve nods. “Together.”

He looks at her one last time, takes in her tousled hair and smeared mascara and rumpled-up dress, such a stark contrast to how she looked earlier that night, but still so incredibly beautiful.

Then he sees her close her eyes, and her hand presses down on his and his stomach lurches and then she’s gone.

The air is clear in his lungs as he inhales deeply. He’s back by the lake, less than a minute after he’s left even though it feels like years (an eternity) to him.

Natasha’s there, sat on a bench a few metres away next to Clint, her head leaning against his shoulder with his arm wrapped around hers. Sam and Bucky are standing by their side, all talking quietly. They look up in relief when he appears, and Bruce says, “Hey, Cap,” from his place behind the monitors.

Steve sways a bit on his feet and Sam calls over a “you okay, Steve?”

Steve waves them off. “Fine, yeah, don’t worry.”

He stumbles off to the edge of the lake, breathes in the air, tries to compose himself, tries to stop the tears from falling.

And then there’s Bucky next to him, pressing their shoulders together ever so slightly.

“Thought we lost you there for a second, buddy.”

Steve shakes his head. “Wouldn’t do that.”

Bucky exhales. “How’s Peggy?”

Steve looks over at him and Bucky grins, then waggles his eyebrows.

Steve snorts. “She’s alright.”

Bucky’s expression goes back to being serious. “Seriously, sweetheart, are you alright?”

And maybe it’s the term of endearment that slips off Bucky’s lips so easily and the way his arm wraps around Steve’s shoulder and Steve’s arm wraps around his waist and the way they both fit together perfectly even after all these years, and maybe it’s the sound of his friends behind him talking and laughing and all being together, maybe the width of the lake and the size of the trees around them and the cool breeze blowing against his face, drying his tears, the sun that’s just starting to peek out from behind the clouds.

(He thinks about giving his shield to Sam because he’s tired of its weight and he doesn’t know anyone else more worthy of it. Thinks about Tony picking this spot to settle down and how he gets it, the quiet and the wind and the soft ripple of the lake against the shore. Thinks about finding a similar place for him and Bucky to rest for a while, to restore their energies, to get to know each other again inside and out, to finally have some quiet together.)

Steve isn’t sure what it is that makes him tilt his head back, but he breathes out a shaky laugh anyway and says, “I will be.”

 


End file.
